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Recent Posts

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19576
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 14, 2009, 01:04 PM »
ps.
Everyone knows i really dislike ads -- i think more than most people.  i've resisted putting them on dc, and i have written over and over again how i find the googleization of the web and the desire to put ads everywhere very troubling.

To me, putting ads or recommendations or surverys or whatever on an application *installer* that i use only once, is one of the least bothersome things i've heard -- as far as i'm concerned when i am installing someone's software they have the right to show me some quick info about their company, ask me to consider donating, answer some optional questions, recommend i support some charities, tell me their political views, etc.  and it doesn't bother me or strike me as wrong in any way.  As long as once i install the software it leaves me alone.
19577
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 14, 2009, 01:00 PM »
I understand why one might be tempted to call anything that shows an ad "AdWare", but i think it would be a real mistake to put programs that use OpenCandy anywhere near the same category of programs that really use AdWare as i understand it.

Let's consider the two kinds of programs:

1. You install a program (be it word processor, utility, whatever) -- and every time it runs it shows some advertisements in the window.  I wouldn't install such a program personally (though i'm not saying there is anything inherently bad or evil about it -- people seem very happy to use web software that does this).  This is what I call AdWare.

2. A program that shows some ads during the installation, but the actual software installed and used on a daily basis contains no ads or anything extra running on your pc.  This is what OpenCandy seems to do, and i think it would be misleading to call such software AdWare.  If you call this AdWare, then any program installer that showed a little picture "advertising" the authors web site, or other programs written by the author, would be considered AdWare.

Honestly, do we really want to label as AdWare any program whose installer shows such a banner or image *only during the installation process* adware?  I think that would be pretty misleading and confusing.  This is not even in the same universe as a program that shows ads when you run it, and seems totally harmless to me.
19578
Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.53.01 - March 18, 2009
« Last post by mouser on May 14, 2009, 12:05 PM »
yeah this has been suggested -- i'm going to try to figure out how to do it.
19579
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 14, 2009, 11:36 AM »
If you haven't, I'd be happy to post a video on YouTube
i think that would be a good idea  :up:
19580
Find And Run Robot / Re: File icons not showing up
« Last post by mouser on May 14, 2009, 11:10 AM »
You can download it early here:
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe
19581
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 14, 2009, 10:48 AM »
Where do I go to opt out, since I never want to see my software promoted in this manner.

I took it from Andrew's reply earlier, that your software can only be included by the developer if you're software allows such a thing (which pretty much should go without saying):
In addition, the EULA of the software being recommended must allow the distribution of its installer.

In other words -- if you don't want other people bundling/distributing it with theirs -- you just have to put that in your EULA/distribution terms on your web page, etc.
19582
Living Room / Re: whats that smell???
« Last post by mouser on May 14, 2009, 12:59 AM »
the video kind of hinted that what made people sick was that people inhaled a cleaning spray that wasn't meant to be inhaled.
19583
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 11:29 PM »
I mentioned that because of your venture will force more developers to use installers when they do not need to.

Not trying to convince you to change your mind Kartal, i respect your opinions -- but i'm not sure what you mean about forcing developers to use installers -- surely no one is going to force people to use this technology.

One other note:
I actually use Inno Setup for all of my programs, but i use a technique that let's me make the installers optional, so people can manually unzip the install programs to use them without running an installer.  The same could be done for developers who want to use Open Candy with inno setup (and NIS installer).
19584
Find And Run Robot / Re: File icons not showing up
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 10:07 PM »
ok, found and fixed (but not yet uploaded); will be in next update this week.
19585
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 04:37 PM »
Ah that makes sense.. i'll modify the post.
19586
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Feature Request: visual at copy, or, paste
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 04:19 PM »
true, easy enough.
19587
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New program: ActiveHotkeys (freeware)
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 03:45 PM »
Welcome Daniel  :up:

One of my very favorite aspects of this forum is seeing conversations like this when we get to meet new programmers with these surprise guest visits!  :-* :-* :-*

Here's hoping you stay around for a while and make yourself at home.  :Thmbsup:
19588
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 03:29 PM »
Last comment:

Needless to say i have no connection to OpenCandy at all.

It's nice that Andrew is a supporter of DC but is irrelevant to my view of OpenCandy -- if someone on DC does something any of us feel is wrong, we should speak up about it, regardless of their status on the site, etc.  In fact that may be an even more important reason for us to speak out.
19589
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 03:25 PM »
From the first post:
If you read their site they claim not to be adware spyware but snooping on people`s choices is a form of attack on privacy in my book.

The only extra thing i want to comment on is how bizarre a situation we are in where every web site on the planet tracks every click we make, how long we stay on every given page, etc., and no one raises an eyebrow -- but yet if a "program" does it, most of us go crazy.  Same thing with advertisements.  As the boundary between desktop and web applications shrink, this is going to get even more schizophrenic.

For me personally, i don't care at all and consider it fine if an installer shows "advertisements" or "banners" -- as long as it doesnt install anything on my pc to do this AFTER the install completes.

And in the same way, i don't mind if it offers me some *OPT-IN* choices that don't try to pretend they are required installs, and aren't checked by default where i might mistakenly install them.

And lastly, if the installer wants to send minor info about which optional things i have chosen to install, during the installation process, that doesn't really bother me -- though it might be nice to ask the user's permission first.

I'm not sure if Andrew explained this part -- but if not -- i do think that the program should tell the user explicitly when the time comes to do it, what info is being sent back to the server.  In these days of trojans and viruses -- it's just common sense that when an application connects out to a server, it should tell the user this is happening and why, to avoid people jumping to wrong conclusions.

In summary, to me the installer is much like the download page on a website -- i don't care if they want to show me some ads, ask me some questions, etc., before i install.  Just don't put anything evil on my PC permanently.
19590
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 03:20 PM »
Welcome Andrew, nice to meet you.

I'm very impressed by your post -- very thoughtful and straightforward i thought, and you addressed all of the issues i had remaining questions about.

Speaking just for me, I think you've re-affirmed my take on OpenCandy, which is that I don't see anything wrong with it and I can see how it would be a good thing for some authors.  Though I definitely can see why people are wary (which is why posts like this explaining the policies are important).

App103 has strong feelings about these things, and i applaud her for looking out for users -- people will have different views on these issues.  Mostly I appreciate your post explaining things in a thoughtful and personal way.

I hope you will continue your role in making sure that OpenCandy maintains the policies you describe -- making sure that "recommended" software is opt-in and that nothing is installed on the users pc that would send info back to the site about user during usage of their selected program.
19591
The Form Letter Machine / Re: Problem with TFLM
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 01:23 PM »
I've resent the emails -- if you don't see them in your email inbox please look around to see if they were filed as spam.


Now let me post what I found in case others stumble upon the same problem:

"Is it possible that the files are somehow being changed between your employer's computer and yours?  How did they send them to you? did they make a zip file of them first and then you unzipped them?"


I have found that the files are slightly "corrupted"

But corrupted in a way that makes me think maybe the files were zipped and then unzipped and the zip program made a mistake where it thought the files were TEXT files that had their end of line characters modified.

That may not make much sense to you but the point is, i believe it explains the problem completely.. and tells us what the solution is -- you need to have your employer resend you the files, but not use a zip program.  OR ALTERNATIVELY you can actually tell your zip program to assume the files are binary, and then it will work.

If the files were not sent to you in zip file format, maybe an email program did this corruption.. i can actually manually repair the files for you if need be, but its more work.

-jesse
19592
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Feature Request: visual at copy, or, paste
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 01:00 PM »
that's not a bad idea -- would a brief icon change be noticeable enough i wonder? it would be the easiest thing to do, but you'd really have to be looking at it to notice it i think.
19593
Post New Requests Here / Re: CAPSLOCK TIMER
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 12:02 PM »
that error often occurs when a download did not complete -- maybe try redownloading (and maybe with a different web browser)?
19594
Find And Run Robot / Re: Few questions
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 11:41 AM »
"run" is an alias -- it simply tells farr to launch what you type after the "run" keyword.
i.e. the run alias is:
run $$1 | $$1 /ICON=icons\farr\core-sysutils_run.ico
19595
The Form Letter Machine / Re: Problem with TFLM
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 11:32 AM »
heidi i sent you a long email explaining the problem -- can you check if you got it -- i will email again if not.
19596
Living Room / Re: ZipCar.com - super cool car sharing service in the US for occasional drivers
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 05:44 AM »
seems like the zipcar insurance situation improved greatly in 2008:
http://carsharingus....insurance-right.html
19597
Living Room / Re: ZipCar.com - super cool car sharing service in the US for occasional drivers
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 05:40 AM »
i found some complaints against zipcar, mostly regarding the insurance coverage.
thought it would be useful to post them here for a balance view:
http://www.felixsalmon.com/000612.html
http://www.felixsalmon.com/000855.html

do note that this is from 2007 so i don't know if things have changed since then.
19598
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Dictionary .NET Free - A MultiLingual Dictionary+Translation+Wikipedia 3-in-1
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 05:16 AM »
Looks pretty cool  :up: :up:
19599
Find And Run Robot / Re: Few questions
« Last post by mouser on May 13, 2009, 04:57 AM »
1. Sometimes, I just want run something which the system recognizes w/o searching. like running explorer or some other application which dir is in the windows %path%.

just type:

run yourfile.exe

farr will search the path and find and run it.

---

#3 is coming.
#2 let me think about.
19600
General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?
« Last post by mouser on May 12, 2009, 10:52 PM »
If these "recommendations" or "ads" are only shown during installation, and are clearly optional, then i probably wouldn't call it spyware or adware.
it's definitely a gray area.. but if the program you install doesn't show ads then we are just talking about an installer issue -- and for me the really important thing in such a case is that the user be told clearly that the optional things to install are really optional, and not be checked by default.

i still wouldnt use it in my software, but i also wouldnt consider it evil.
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